Boys of Summer of '69

Thanks for joining us. You're just in time for the latest unwitting call-and-response between General Dowd and the carrier pigeon chorus of Joseph Q. Boyle. Recently, a flock of said pigeons was intercepted (or rather, peppered with buckshot,) and from their claws fell a package of such import that we rushed it to the lab to decipher the myriad secrets contained within.

Disappointingly, it was a Don Henley song.

I know, I know! But save your boos and hisses. Stop yourself before jumping from a nearby high-rise. I know you're worried that Boyle has gone native, that he's sunk to the level of our sworn enemy. But rest assured! This isn't just any Don Henley song, this is the good one. No, not the one that makes the listener break out in a rash. Not the one we use to make pious monks self-immolate. Right. It's that one other one.

Boys_of_Summer.mp3

No I don't think I need a shirt, thank you.

Not bad, right? And at least he didn't go all Eagles on us.

Nonetheless, I was forced to retaliate. You see, Henley's Summer is only one side of the coin dated 1984: A year when people still listened to the radio, looked forward to voting Republican, and drove good ol' Detroit steel. A year when the Ministry of Truth stomped Winston Smith into blissful submission. Ah... memories.

And in 1984, when I was but a tender blerenven years old, did I appreciate the nuanced melancholy of Boys of Summer? I did not. Did I instead sing along with the unbridled (dare I say Canadian) optimism of Bryan Adams's Summer of '69? Surely. Did I giggle every time it hit the chorus? No comment.

Adams serves up a paean to his teen years—a time when everything was well and good with the world. Or at least Canada. In those pre-ironic days of 1984, I even missed the joke of a squeaky-clean Adams naming his album Reckless, when he can't even utter a line like "It cuts like a knife" without coming across like Michael J. Fox's foppish body double. I mean, look at this photo-shoot. Is this "reckless?"

Reckless: adj. (rěk'lĭs) - Suffering from a lack of reck.

Summer_of_'69.mp3

So I apologize for the delay, but I needed time to prepare a dose of Adams's lap-dog happiness with which to respond properly to Henley's jaded cynicism. Henley, who manages to imbue the most humanity in the part of the song where he's not singing, and Adams, who... Well, just look at that album cover again.

note: The original songs haven't been linked to because you should just listen to this track instead.

Wakiki Boyle

EXTRA EXTRA: JOE BOYLE FOUND!
LINDBERGH BABY...ALSO FOUND

After spending countless man-hours reviewing aerial photography, scrutinizing enemy movements and constructing a massive enigma machine/pipe organ hybrid to discover Boyle's hiding place, DemoWAR was outflanked by the Admiral himself. He managed to hack into the ISP and leave the following message in everyone's inbox like a trail of dirty, dirty breadcrumbs - covered in poison.

The deceptive subject line, (FellAhs, it r3ally w0rk2! MaKe h3r hAppy a11 n1ght l0ng!!!) went undetected for all of seventeen seconds. A pat on the back goes to our resident spam filter, Frank, for some great investigative work and general creepiness.*

Comrades,

Pardon the lateness of my reply, but I am enjoying my time here on [REDACTED] Island, soothing the savage beast with music's charms. I have befriended the primitive pygmies here, called the "Timanak", who live a backwards, tribal sort of life. I feel that I must have stumbled into some kind of twilight zone, transported through time to this babylonian environ.

I hesitate to call the tribe civilized, but what they lack in propriety, they more than make up for in curiosity. Just this morning, in fact, one of the young warrior-types was measuring my head with a length of string, showcasing it to his cohorts and hooting wildly. I trust that further observation will unlock many the varied secrets of the tribe, the island, and perhaps even my bamboo cage.

I must now sign off, as I have been invited to join in their repast this evening. No word yet on what dish will be served, but judging by the large bubbling cauldron, it should be quite a feast.

Enclosed, please find my latest submission. Resources are limited in this place, but you'd be amazed what a man can do with coconuts and catgut if he's got the mind.

Yours in confidence—mine otherwise,
Boyle

What follows is a sequence of ones and zeroes, printed out across seven reams of paper. After chewing on it for awhile, our tube-powered monolith, "ENIAC's Revenge", spat this out:
Don't_Think_Twice.mp3

Dylan's sprawling original lives here: Dylan_Dont_Think_Twice.mp3

*Dear Frank's wife: Don't be disappointed when it does not r3ally work2.

Uncharted Territory

One of the main objectives of the new ISP "information pipeline" is to establish contact with Fleet Admiral Joe Boyle, last seen adrift somewhere in the South Pacific, aiding a sea creature in need. The problem with our aim is this - Connecting with someone through the ISP is a tricky process, one requiring a great deal of skill, global positioning know-how, and a general knowledge of where the target person is. We're 0 for 3.

At this point, our intel on Boyle has been reduced to the message-in-a-bottle variety. Literally. Every three or four days we receive a missive scrunched up into a Chilean wine bottle, or some such thing, with a cryptic message that's been scrawled on a bar napkin, etched into wood chips, or in one case, watermarked on the sails of a tiny model ship. Here are a few examples to give you an idea what we're working with:

Swimming upon the Devil's lake. Right next to the Devil's ranch house. Nice horsies.

If planning to sit upon the setting sun, bring some water.

Lucky numbers are 13, 43, 64, 88, eleventy-seven.

The Devil's lake and the setting sun? Land of the setting sun? Boyle could be in the mountains of Tibet by now, a man of his resources. He could be in Tokyo. Dublin. Kenya. Hell, he could be hiding in the back row of this senate subcommittee.

He could be disguised as the clock.

To our not-so-credit.... to our uncredit, to be grammatically esuphegent, we're thwarted by the Admiral himself. He could be leading us along with these messages in bottles, in some messages-in-a-bottle-on-a-stick mind games. And the Gulf Stream could be a little more cooperative. Someone in Greenland is getting some other pieces of the puzzle, and God help us if they get their hands on a corner piece. We're going to need a bigger net... and see if you can't find the cover of the box while you're at it.

I can only assume the hobo's name is Steven.

One bottle we received contained this record, rolled into a perfect tube. The album, when extracted, popped open, blooming like a beautiful vinyl flower, completely intact and sounding like this:
The_Wind.mp3

Primary sources can be found here: CatStevens_The_Wind.mp3

We'll need every recruit's help with this one. Boyle is out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. Or he could be, you know... drinking mojitos. Either way, we need more ammo - send your own munitions and submissions to wedontneednotape@gmail.com.

New Installment: Operation Leapfrog

Everyone knows that in times of war, communication is priority one. Well, in the wake of a recent incident involving our former accounting team and a few Cayman Island tax shelters, DemoWAR budgets have been reassessed.

Updated: DemoWAR HQ Budget Priorities:
1) Pursue, eliminate enemy personnel
...
16) BoyleHunt 2000 [Ongoing]
...
23) Start saving for super-cool Acoustic Bazooka

...I'll just flip towards the end of the report:

972-c) Radio Relay Maintenance

See what we're working with? As a result, we're stuck with what I like to call "heirloom" radios, devices of such vintage and antiquity that we live in constant fear that the mobile command unit will turn into a fireball on wheels. Just yesterday, in fact, a high-pitched whine coming from the radio room caught my attention. The volume increased to the point of eyeball warbling before ending with a loud pop and a muffled "Ah Christ!" (Thankfully, earlier that week I had the foresight to call on a friend who slathered everything in my office with a flame-retardant gel. "Good timing!" I thought, as the ensuing shower of sparks bounced off my retardant gel-encased face.)

Another consequence of this mesozoic machinery is that our communiques are oftentimes... garbled. Transmissions get through, but not the way they were intended. This week I bring you one such attempt. The following were transcribed by Acting-Ensign Andreson and myself. Admiral Boyle managed to worm his way in as well, and his input was delivered by carrier pigeon not five minutes ago.

The protocol:
Message must be relayed to a soldier with no previous knowledge of the original. Soldier then reinterprets and passes along to the next recipient.

The original message:
Venus.mp3 by Television

This particular message spread like a virus. That is to say, quickly and with much mutation. It moved from Andreson...



to Dowd...


to Boyle.

And you can collect all three in one handy zip file: Venus.zip
Unless federal belts are tightened to the point of moebius strips, this could very well be a recurring series. Keep your eyes and ears peeled. (More Emma than John.)

Land Ho!

When last we left our fearless Admiral Boyle, he was stranded out at sea with nothing to help pass the time but his trusty guitar, a laptop, diesel generator for said laptop, seven cans of gas for said generator, a dog-eared issue of Club International* and a pringle-can wifi antenna that was spotty at best. He drifted about for a few days trying to find inspiration, some kind of muse or stimuli, a goddamn wireless signal so he could triangulate his location, something!

Now there are a lot of things in this great, big ocean of ours, and it turns out that most of them are water. You would think that this sea of endless blue would discourage, but Joe managed all right, and even found someone that he got along with:

Sweet tortoise-shell finish!

Olive was a sweet girl who found herself in a "family way" and needed some help. Knowing, as all good Navy officers do, that sea turtles of the family Cheloniidae will return to their place of birth in order to lay their eggs**, Admiral Boyle tethered his life-raft to Senorita Ridley's shell and hitched a ride. When they finally beached, Joe held her flipper and wiped her brow with a moist cloth while she dug in the sand to deposit her young ones.
Soon after, this happened:


Joe named them all Marvin.
Can you blame him? With that kind of inspiration, anyone's thoughts would quickly turn to love (and the making of.) Also, the salt-water dementia was starting to set in. It was all Joe could do to avoid stepping on the adorable little buggers as he ran to lay down this saucy little number:

Marvin, you are so close to being in a Tool video.

Download Joe Boyle's desert-island Let's_Get_It_On.mp3

And listen to the old, blurry one here: Gaye_Let's Get It On

---

*No hyperlink for that one, dirtbag.
**It's right after Basic Training, in Not-So-Basic Training.

Exoskeletons Never Did Nobody No Good

Dispatches from overseas have been in short supply this week, and I find out now that it's been due to a tussle on the deck of Admiral Boyle's aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Scuttlebutt. Now, I'm reluctant to use the word "mutiny" in mixed company, so let's just say that a certain Admiral has a certain temper, and it was inflamed by a supposed infraction into his supposed territory, sparking a certain turf-war and eventually leaving him stranded in a dinghy off the coast of Cape Horn. I'll just leave it at that.

To keep his spirits up, Joe laid down this sweet little ditty to keep himself occupied until help arrived.
It's_Gonna_Be_All_Right.mp3

And give a listen to Ween's version here.

Boyle was dismayed to discover that the cause of his frustrations was nothing more than the trouble-making of the detestable scamp illustrated in this rarely seen image:

A bile-inducing "artist's rendition."

Known simply as The Mollusk, this ugly little bastard uses its over-developed cochlea to echo and mimic sonar waves. Then after strapping itself onto a ship hull, all barnacle-like, it messes with the transducers, or the capacitors, or something.

How's that for a last-minute wrap-up attributed to a previously unheard-of lifeform?

---

REVISIONIST UPDATE:
Joe has recorded a new version of his first song, You Can Close Your Eyes. Hop in the Delorean and motor back the first post to check it out.

In which surrender is not an option.

In the true spirit of DemoWAR, the turnaround on this update was roughly 30 hours from concept to execution. Negotiations began on the possibility of a trans-Atlantic duet, the seeds of which, whether sown in Europe or North America, would ultimately flower on the opposite shore. This was to be an olive branch extended between two contentious parties; a breaking of bread to assuage a fitful alliance.

The duet idea was scrapped, however, when Joe delivered a perfectly complete version of Society, from Eddie Vedder's latest "album." The song arrived with harmonies and percussion included, despite Ryan's protestations of, "Wha?", "But I thought we...", and many shakings of fist.

Right click to download: Society.mp3

Click album art to sample the original:

Hippies, hippies, everywhere.

Florence, Italy - GMT 22:30:00
Phone calls were made, long-distance charges were incurred, and a rarely-used, unmarked door slid open silently in the hills near Certosa Del Galluzzo. The 14th century abbey has been classified as inactive since the early 1900s. Therefore, nobody saw the dark sedan as it rolled down the drive. No one was there to bear witness to its four passengers, their faces shrouded by hooded robes as they proceeded on their mission.

Meanwhile, in the States, a humble publisher's assistant makes his way back home. He swings his arms rhythmically as he walks, as if a song plays through his head. His mood can best be described as "content."

The fruits of his labor can be found here: No Ceiling.mp3


Into the Wild is a soundtrack, but it is entirely written and performed by one artist. Does that make it simply a soundtrack? An album? As an collection of songs, it rises above flops like Flash Gordon and Maximum Overdrive. As a score it's more song-based than Dead Man or Grizzly Man. It doesn't approach the rock opera vibe in Purple Rain.

Ultimately, the songs stand on their own in album fashion, and I find it most comparable to Tom Petty's soundtrack to She's the One. It's his best album between 1989 and 2006, and his worst-selling. I blame Ed Burns.

Duets are stupid anyways.

UPDATE: Having just heard from Joe, it seems that a cadre of anonymously-employed assassin monaci have been liquidated, and our brave Admiral Boyle is only slightly worse for wear, having merely sprained his ankle and scuffed his new calfskin loafers during the tussle. The injury is excusable. The scuff, alternately, is an affront to fine Italian leather.
Commendations to the Admiral for sleeping, as he says, "with one eye always open, you bastards." and we look forward to many more fine contributions from him and his staff.

---

*Veddarian** -adj: of or pertaining to Eddie Vedder or related works (i.e. Pearl Jam, Hunger Strike, etc.)

**All rights to the term Veddarian are reserved by the author.

Know it sounds funny...

...but Joe just can't stand the pain....
This week we bring you the third in Joe's continuing series of embarrassingly-dated album art. Lionel Richie's contributed Easy to the fifth Commodores record, and it served as the linchpin between their era of space-jam funk supremacy and the new wave* of easy-listening, 1980s superhits. And come on, this record cover looks just like every Chicago album.

Delta 417 to Air Traffic Control... Are you seeing this?

*apologies to The Eurythmics.

And for those of you thinking what I know you're thinking... Joe has clearly omitted the "ewwww!" going into the solo, narrowly avoiding a Cover-of-a-Cover paradox the results of which could start a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, destroying the entire universe!**

Right-click to download: Easy.mp3

Click here for the original by The Commodores or the cover by Faith No More.

Don't believe the rhinos - this is not a Faith No More cover.

Seems to me, Joe, you know Joe's done all Joe can. I can do this ALL DAY, people. I'll substitute proper names for nouns and pronouns for the rest of this post.

Joe wanna be free to know the things Joe do are right.

Hm. That didn't work as well as planned. You've got to admit, though, it's better than thinking about this:
"Joe's a brick----house... He's mighty might-ah! Joe's lettin' it all hang out..."

**Granted, that's a worse case scenario. The destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to our own galaxy.

---

note: I've changed the links on this post to direct to the itunes store. In my experience, the Amazon MP3 store is a better service in that it has higher bitrates, is browser-based, and (most importantly) doesn't use any kind of DRM. But then again, these tracks weren't available at Amazon, so there's a plus mark in the iTunes column for ya. Yay, capitalism.

A semi-ironic retort

Sick of earnest, heartfelt song craft, Joe made a swift 180 just to rape the happy memory of Ryan's metal-head teen years by re-imagining the lead follow-up, but more famous single from these guys:


YES!
He even thought to include the blistering solo before the last chorus. He could have taken 'er easy and hammered the cowbell for "Slave to the Grind", he could have written love letters in the sand for "I Remember You", he could have ended up like this guy:



Let's all thank god that he didn't, and just enjoy the mp3 below. After all, now we can look forward to cut-rate versions of any number of self-indulgent, bloated, hair-metal tracks from the tapes in the center console of Ryan's old truck.




18_and_Life.mp3


18 and Life, 1989 version.

Sweet Baby J... Joe.

UPDATE: Joe's new version is downloadable here: Close_Your_Eyes_new.mp3


Joe Boyle inadvertantly starts off a DemoWAR with his cover of James Taylor’s “You Can Close Your Eyes” from this hippie-fest record.

You_Can_Close_Your_Eyes.mp3


Download it, ipod it, zune it, whatever. Leave some feedback.
If you'd like to hear JT's old version, it's right here.